


Good Villains are Hard to Find

by HiatusMusings



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: AU, Bellarke, F/M, Spies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22012414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiatusMusings/pseuds/HiatusMusings
Summary: In Arkadia City, you were either predator, or prey. There was no in-between. That’s why when Dax and Sterling came up to him after his shift that night, and told him they knew where Octavia had disappeared to, and what he would have to do to get her back, he didn’t feel anything like a moral quandary.Clarke Griffin was a predator too he told himself. Putting a bullet in her would just be ridding Arkadia of one more killer, even if it made him one to do it.SummaryBellamy Blake believes he’s lost his sister to the rich and powerful villains that rule Arkadia city, and he’ll do anything to get her back. But when he goes looking for her, he finds something else he never expected, and a person that will turn his world inside out.Spies. Intrigue. Fire Fights (with a side of slow burn romance).
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 25
Kudos: 76





	1. Chapter 1

He decides to kill Clarke Griffin on a Wednesday. 

Bellamy is leaning against the cold wet bricks outside of the bar he works at. Normally, he’s behind the bar top, slinging drinks and glowering at the customers. For some men and women the surlier he looked and the gruffer he responded seemed to free extra units from fists in some misguided attempt to win favor back to his place. But tonight, he’s playing bouncer, taking a break from tracking drinks, his head too full with worry over Octavia’s disappearance to bother with interacting with humans other than to push them back out into the night.

The hour is barely brushing up against midnight. Inside, about twenty people are clumped in groups, women in tight clothes, men in bulky layers to hide the weapons. 

The pulse of the fluorescents in the sign above him spelled out The Drop Ship. Only the “drop” had burnt out, so now it read “The Ship.” Given the work black market hauling Sterling and Dax did out the back door, it was a more apt name that at first glance. 

It was boring work, but regular, not many wanted to screw around where the alcohol lived, and even more didn’t want to mess with the burly man in the tight black t-shirt, muscles and scars rippling across the forearms, a beard layered on his face, baseball cap pulled low as the black curls covered more. He knew he made an unfriendly, and unapproachable site. That was kind of the point.

In Arkadia City, you were either predator, or prey. There was no in-between. That’s why when Dax and Sterling came up to him after his shift that night, and told him they knew where Octavia had disappeared to, and what he would have to do to get her back, he didn’t feel anything like a moral quandary. 

Clarke Griffin was a predator too he told himself. Putting a bullet in her would just be ridding Arkadia of one more killer, even if it made him one to do it. 

***  
Dax and Sterling followed him back to the cramped little apartment that up until six months ago he’d lived in with his sister, Octavia. The rain beat down on their backs but none of the men had money for a cab, so they arrived soaked through, Bellamy rummaging around in the fridge for a few beers, peeling off the black shirt and waiting for the two men to explain what they knew. 

He wanted to remind them, when they saw the prison tattoos, the scars, that he was more experienced in this world than them. That he wouldn’t blink when asked to kill for his sister.

“So, so remember yous said Tavi was partying a lot after she quit school a few months back,” Dax began.

“She didn’t quit. She graduated with honors,” Bellamy growled.

Dax paled a bit, “right er, yeah Blake I get ya, but it’s _who_ she was seen partying with at the clubs. 

Bellamy swallowed the anxiety back, he had been trying, really trying to stop being so overprotective since she graduated. She’d told him she needed space, she was eighteen now, wanted to stretch her legs a bit after he’d basically locked her up in her room studying and training her whole life. But Bellamy knew what was out there in Arkadia. Unless your bank statement had about six zeros after it instead of one, the only thing out there was shit. 

He broke his back to make the tuition for St. Augustus in the hope that she’d win a scholarship to one of the universities. But after seeing her walk with her cap and gown, his heart near bursting with pride she had blind-sided him. Told him that she’d turned down the spot at the Polis university. She wanted to explore the world that was disappearing before their very eyes, she said. She wanted to see what was out there before pollution and war ripped it from them. 

He told her Polis was the gateway to all that. She refused. So, in a stalemate, he let go. Hoping that by not asking where she went at night, not questioning what job she might take up, she would come back to him. 

Instead, a month of late nights and late-returned calls and her room was cleared out. Vanished.  
The police, what little remained of a true justice system shrugged. She was of age. She had said she wanted to leave Arkadia. There was nothing they would do.

It broke his heart. But the idea that it hadn’t been her choice to leave, that his head-strong, stubborn, brilliant, little sister could have been stolen from him made him want to set a ring of fire around the thief.

“Who?” He asked.

Sterling looked up at him, was that guilt on his face? Bellamy wondered, “I was at the Trading Post, Octavia was dancing with Clarke Griffin up on the stage. Then I saw her in the VIP circle, all of Griffin’s people. That’s who she was hanging around with before she disappeared.” 

_Those people, _Bellamy knew what he meant. Clarke Griffin hunted the young, the beautiful, the brilliant of Arkadia and gathered them to her like a moth to a flame. There wasn’t a week where the front page of the newspapers didn’t shove the beautiful woman in his face as she collected people for weeks, months, bestowing favors, giving them a glimpse at a life so far out of reach it was unknowable, and then suddenly they were gone.__

__You could say that they had just found a better job in another city with the connections only a Griffin or one of her ilk could provide, or grew ill of the constant flow of drink and drugs, or they simply disappeared in the network of a dying world. Feeding the few to gluttony while the rest of them starved in a night sky that could no longer show you the constellations._ _

__And now Octavia was one of them, one of Clarke Griffin’s playthings. O had wanted to see the world, what had she promised her?_ _

__“What will it take to get her back?” Bellamy asked._ _

__Dax and Sterling stared at each other nervously, before Dax stood up, “listen Bell, my cousin she’s a maid in Emerson’s house. She was talking to me on the phone about it and he overheard her. Said he would pay us a thousand units each to go to the Griffin manor and kill Clarke Griffin. That’s where Octavia’s been staying.” Dax pulled the gun out of the back of his jeans._ _

__Bellamy stared at the glinting metal, “I don’t need that to kill someone,” he said softly._ _

__“Don’t take this the wrong way Bell,” Sterling said, “but I’ve known you for a long time and rich bitch or not, I don’t think you want to kill her with your bare hands. Plus, you’re pretty well-known for those skills, if she shows up all karate-ed to death it would be easier to connect to you, or O for that matter.”_ _

__He had a point, Bellamy thought. Not about it leading back to him, he didn’t care as long as O was safe. And if this worked out, maybe it would be enough to convince her to get back on the plan. Take her deferred seat in Polis. Become something it was safe to be in this world._ _

__“So why the hell are you two getting paid the same amount as me?” He said instead, grabbing the gun from the table and shoving it down his jean strap._ _

__“We can get you into the mansion,” Sterling said, “after that you’re on your own for getting back out.”_ _

__“When,” he asks._ _

__“Wednesday,” Dax said, “Emerson said she had declined the invite to his party, she’ll be at home which means Octavia will be too.”_ _

__Bellamy stared at them, not letting them know how hard and fast his heart was beating. How much he didn’t want it to have come to this._ _

__“See you then,” he said instead._ _

__Then men drained their beer, slamming the bottles down on the table and walking out of the apartment. Bellamy sat in the chair, the single light above him swinging back and forth. He didn’t take a sip of his beer, letting it grow warm on the table as he decided to become a murderer._ _

__****  
It was cool for a fall night as Dax, Sterling, and Bellamy drove up to the Griffin estate. The had “borrowed” a car for the evening from Sterling’s chop shop and stopped and hid it in the woods a mile out from the gate. _ _

__“Emerson gave me the security details. Apparently they use the same company,” Sterling said, unrolling a schedule for the patrol. You’ll have three minutes to make it from the fence line to the front door. One of the guards will leave it unlocked.”_ _

__“What about inside?” Bellamy asked, checking and rechecking the gun to keep his nerves at bay, “that compound has to have like a hundred rooms, not to mention security. How am I supposed to find the woman let alone O in there before being caught?”_ _

__“Apparently she doesn’t allow security in the house,” Dax said, “she’s as dumb as she is rich.”_ _

__“And the hundred rooms to search part?” Bellamy asked sullenly._ _

__“I don’t know man, start with kitchen and bar?” Dax shrugged, “we’ll be here for you and O if you get out, we’ll wait until 2 am._ _

__His fingers shook a little at the “if.”_ _

__“Fine,” he said gruffly, stowing the gun back beneath his coat and jogged over to the front gate. He was a fast runner and covered the distance easily, and found the door unlocked just as planned. Coming in through the goddamn front door to kill a person. Who the hell was he?_ _

__He shook his head, this wasn’t the time to examine his life choices. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself from the sprint, crouching down near a grandfather clock chiming quarter past one. He couldn’t help but look around at the sumptuous, but strangely abandoned feeling mansion. He was in the entrance way but there was barely a thing on the walls. It was all dark wood and red carpets with wide entrances to various rooms before coming to a point at a grand staircase._ _

__He pulled the gun out, feeling the weight of it in his hand. It was time to find O, maybe, just maybe he could convince her to get out without involving Clarke Griffin, if not, well, he would do what he had to, he always had when it came to his little sister._ _

__He started with the kitchen, it wasn’t the worst idea Dax had ever had. Crouched low, a fighting stance the whole way through, his only company was the slow tick of the clock._ _

__He covered the main areas, and hearing nothing more in the cavernous floor he slowly crept up the staircase, beads of sweat running down his back. It was too quiet in this house. For a person like Clarke Griffin who stuck to bars and clubs and hobnobbing with the families that ran this city, how could she stand this mausoleum of a home?_ _

__Reaching the top of the stairs he heard the clock chime, half past. “Come on O,” he whispered to himself, the hallway in front of him seemed to tunnel, the doors seeming for a moment like that scene in Alice in Wonderland, O’s favorite. As the end gets tinier and tinier._ _

__He thought he must be having a panic attack, when, from the corner of his eye he heard a noise in the room two doors down on his left. He crept closer and heard the faint murmuring of a voice, the crackle of a fireplace._ _

__All at once, the fear went away. He may not have found Octavia yet, but he had found the person responsible for why she was gone. He leaned against the door frame, peering into the crack. He could see a small silhouette in the window at the end of the room. The person was talking on the phone, a low murmur. A flash of light from the fire illuminating strands of blonde hair._ _

__Bingo._ _

__He slipped in soundlessly, closing the door behind him with a soft click. He watched her back stiffen, and as she slowly turned around and he got his first look at Clarke Griffin that wasn’t from a newsreel, glossy magazine, or front page of the Arkadian Gazette._ _

__She was beautiful, there was no denying it. Blond tresses fell around her pale face, the moon behind her in the big bay windows as she slowly set the phone down and placed her hands calmly on the top of the desk._ _

__He raised the gun and stared at her over the hilt of it._ _

__“Well, hello there,” she said, her voice much lower than he’d expected. There wasn’t a single note of fear in either, he noted, the realization sending a swoop of anxiety through him. But then he remembered. Predator or prey. You don’t stay on top in this world if your reflex is flight instead of fight._ _

__“Just tell me where Octavia is, and I promise I won’t hurt you,” he said, the practiced words sounding much more forceful in his head than spoken in this large room. Out loud, they sounded small. He felt small._ _

__“What was that?” Clarke replied, a smirk on her face, “couldn’t hear you over the shaking on the trigger, you realize the safety is still on, right?”_ _

__Embarrassment flooded him. He pulled the safety back on the gun, the woman’s face still too steady and unconcerned for the situation he was putting her in._ _

__“I’m going to ask you one more time,” he said, the metal feeling unnaturally cool in his hands. “Where is my sister, what have you done with Octavia?”_ _

__“Screw. You,” she said her face lined with derision._ _

__The flash of anger shook his hand so hard he almost lost his grip, then, tightened his grasp he realized too late his finger was on the trigger._ _


	2. The Ring

The bullet went wide, hitting the window behind her and embedding itself into the bulletproof glass, a spider-web splintering out from it. He stared at her, she hadn’t moved. She hadn’t screamed. She raised an eyebrow. It occurred to Bellamy just then, that listening to Dax and Sterling had rarely netted out to be a good thing for him. 

She seemed to take a very deep breath, her perfectly manicured fingers tapping along the desk in front of her. “This is fucking unnecessary Bellamy,” she said, “I’m not holding Octavia hostage.”

“Then where is she?” he hissed, risking his voice getting louder, risking everything. Time was running out, he might only have a few more minutes before he lost his life, or lost his sister to the bowels of this strange place forever. The guards that were actually loyal to her would have heard the gunshot.

She moved around the desk then and he barked at her, “no, stay there.”

“No thanks,” she shot back at him, mouth set in a thin line as she walked over to the large fireplace and mantle, grabbing a glass bottle from it. He was about to tell her that if she moved again he was going to shoot her, and this time it wouldn’t be a warning shot, but everything was too wrong, too off. 

“Drink?” she asked pulling two crystal tumblers from next to a large clock that chimed the time. 2am. Dax and Sterling would be pulling away. His freedom with it, and likely O’s. 

“What the hell are you doing?” He asked, slowly lowering the gun, his shoulder aching in relief. 

“I’ve been up for twenty eight hours, I need a drink and a shower, but it looks like I’m only getting one of the things on my wish list at the moment,” she said, her long blonde hair slipped into her face as she poured the rusty liquid into the crystal, the flames of the fireplace behind her. She sat down in one of the large leather chairs, setting the second glass on the side table of the chair across from her. “Sit, please,” she added as an afterthought.

“I’m giving the orders here,” he replied. 

“Sure, whatever,” she replied, “but you should know that dying isn’t exactly a terrifying thought to me, however, killing seems to be one for you. So how about we sit and have a drink and discuss the whereabouts of your sister, hmm?’ She took a sip as he glanced toward the heavy wood door at the entrance of the room. “No tricks,’ she said lightly. “No security allowed inside the home. I like my privacy, despite what the reports may say.”

Finally, feeling as though he was in some strange dream he walked over slowly to the proffered chair, sitting down in the buttery leather. He laid the gun on the armchair, reaching slowly for the glass tumbler, the sharp engravings on the crystal along it cutting into his fingers.

“So, you do know where she is?” He asked then, staring at this odd person. She looked both much younger, and yet older than in all the tabloids and newsreels. But she wasn’t dressed in any way he was used to seeing. Instead of a low cut, tight formal gown or slinky fabric for a club she was in ratty jeans, stains and holes that were not thought out by a designer lined them. 

Nothing sparkled on her but a man’s old wristwatch, hanging off a slim wrist that was covered in the fabric of a flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. She looked...almost normal. But her eyes, they stood out. Solid blue that seemed brighter somehow without the face of makeup. 

He suddenly realized that this wasn’t the person he expected to meet. He thought he’d be scaring some dumb socialite into telling him what people or drugs she’d gotten O mixed up in, but he’d walked straight into some kind of lion’s den.

“So, we’re talking about Octavia Blake, sister to Bellamy Blake, proficient in Hapkido, a master in judo, excelled in languages at school, and a damn mastermind in tasteless reality tv, yes?” She asked rhetorically, a wiry smile on her lips as she took a sip of the whisky, listing off Octavia’s accomplishments and skills like a to-do list. As though there could be two of her name missing from this city.

He reached for the gun, laying his hand on it as a reminder to her who was in charge here. It did no good, she knew she was. 

“I’m just looking to find her, and get her away from you,” he said tonelessly, “you let her go, and we can forget all about this. I won’t go to the authorities.”

“What a gallant offer, how can I refuse?” She said, and his stomach dropped as he realized she was teasing him, her eyes glinting at him above the glass she raised to her lips. “You should try the scotch, it was my father’s favorite year.”

“I don’t want your damn drinks, tell me what you’ve done to Octavia!” He yelled rising to his feet and swiping the tumbler towards the fire. The crash of the glass in the back of the flames satisfying in its destruction. Less so was her wholly unconcerned reaction. She simply sat back farther into the seat, sighing.

“The second unnecessary thing of the night,” she muttered. 

“You’re crazy,” he said, feeling the lines of panic up his arm. What was he going to do with a woman that wouldn’t talk, and a maze of a mansion to search ahead of him?

“I’m really not,” she said plainly, “and your sister wasn’t lying when she said you were a hot head, jesus christ.”

At the mention of Octavia his breathing slowed, “she’s alive?” He asked tentatively.

Clarke narrowed her eyes, “of course she is, what do you imagine I’ve done with her?”

“I,” he started, then looking at the angry tilt of her chin he sat back down so she wasn’t staring up at him. “The people you befriend, people you collect, they end up dead, everyone knows this.”

“Oh, everyone knows this?” She asked him back archly, “and how do _they_ know this?

“It’s just what’s said,” he grumbled, running his now empty hands together, the dry skin chafing between each finger, “you give them drugs, you party with them, they’re never seen by their families again, if they had any to begin with. But Octavia has me, she’s my responsibility and I won’t let you make her into one of your, your-” 

“Dead friends?” Clarke said darkly, no smile on her face now, her own fingers tight on the glass. “So what, you assume me to be some kind of Queen pin? As though I need to take money from such a shadow economy? Did you not see the Van Gogh in the hall?”

He licked his lips, seeing the cracks in the case plain now. It didn’t add up really, when you looked at it from that angle. But Dax and Sterling had said they’d seen O, drunk, stumbling, high on...something. “I don’t know about all that,” he said finally, I’m just trying to keep my sister safe.”

“Well in that perhaps we would have something in common,” she said softly, her head tilting back to rest. 

“Just tell me,” he pleaded, “I owe people things now, I’ve done, I’ve made promises to people in order to get her back,” he tried to explain haltingly, “but I won’t, I won’t hurt you, I’ll just take O and leave you alone, if you just tell me where she is.”

She looked back at him impassively, “so you’re here because some obviously intelligent people told you that she was here, that they’d give you money if you killed me in the process of saving her from my clutches. A public service with an added benefit at the end,” she said succinctly. 

“Something like that,” he mumbled as the clock chimed 2:15. 

For a moment all that was heard was the fire and the ticking of the clock. Clarke looked away from him, staring at the mantle and the pictures that lined it. “Don’t you think it’s strange that someone wants to kill some dumb socialite with too much money?” 

Bellamy turned his head away from the gun sitting to his right, the left side of his face too warm now, tight. “In a city like Arkadia, where people like you step on our throats, pick the brightest among us to ruin for fun, it didn’t seem like the craziest thing to me.”

“Well when you put it like that it’s a wonder I didn’t get picked off long ago,” Clarke said, sighing and turning back to stare at him. “I didn’t take Octavia, I offered her a job, and it’s her own fault for not telling her big brother she wasn’t fucking kidnapped.”

His neck snapped over to her so hard he hear a pop go off. “A job?” He asked, incredulous. “As what, a maid or something?” 

Clarke’s mouth dropped open in disbelief just as the second set of wide french doors burst open. The gun in his hand and raised to the figure that stomped through in a second, but just as quickly he dropped it as Octavia blazed over to him. Relief rushed through him but was gone just as quickly at the sharp slap that rang across his face, struck by his little sister.

“O?” He stumbled back, not even fighting her as she twisted his wrist down and back and the gun dropped to the floor as she kicked it further away from him with her foot. Just like he’d taught her. 

“What the hell Bell?” She snarled in his face, “what are you doing here?”

“I’m saving you,” he mumbled, from, his eyes cut over to Clarke who looked on with a bemused expression. 

“Saving me?” Octavia asked in disbelief.

“Octavia,” Clarke said softly, “give him a moment. This is your fault too.”

His sister took a step back, as Clarke stood up, resting the now empty glass on the mantle, dust drifting down to the floor at the movement. The two women looked at each other until O stepped away, her hands folding behind her back, her head straight up and staring past his shoulder. 

It rang a hollow reminder in Bellamy’s memory of the stance of the roman soldiers in the books he’d read as a child. It was the stance of soldier.

“Bellamy,” Clarke called out, making him turn to face her. She was quite short really, small in the large plaid and rumpled jeans. “Let me be the first to welcome you.”

“Welcome me to where?” He asked faintly.

She smirked, but there was an overwhelming sadness in her eyes that struck him as she said the next words, words that he wouldn’t realize until nearly a year later would spell his ending. She took a breath, he felt the world tip on its axis, “welcome to the Ring.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Chapters will get longer as I go.
> 
> Kudos and Comments always looked forward to and appreciated. 
> 
> Also trying to figure out Tumblr as Hiatus Musings. Come yell at me there.


	3. Join or Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy learns the truth about Clarke Griffin.

The Ring. It didn’t exist, everyone knew that. 

The Ring was a fairytale, a myth people told each other when deaths and motives didn’t add up, or their families were spared in a raid. Everyone wished heroes were real. They wanted to believe there were people out there willing to risk their lives for the good of the city. But Bellamy wasn’t so gullible, he knew better than to hope someone would care enough about him, or his sister to swoop in and save the day. 

Yet, it didn’t stop Bellamy from telling the same fairytales to Octavia when she was little. Anything to make her feel safe, even when he was actively teaching her the skills she would need to survive in their reality. 

Now he understood how Octavia had gotten sucked into Clarke Griffin’s world, she’d told her she could make her a hero for her city, played into his sister’s deepest desire to be _known_. It made his blood boil. Drugs he could get her off of, but this? How was he supposed to break his little sister’s heart?

“Is that what you’ve told her?” He asked the woman in front of him, “that you’re some kind of hero, a masked vigilante at night?” He made no effort to cover the derision in his voice. The rich always did this, got away by spinning tales of charitable act meant to cover for how the rest of them had to live.

Clarke rolled her eyes in response, turning away from him as she walked back over to the obscenely large desk in the back of the room. 

He looked over at his sister now, her face still stormy but more composed, not missing the overly large man that had come up behind her, his bare but tattooed arms crossed in front of him. “O, this isn’t real, she’s feeding you a pack of lies, those are just stories, you really think _Clarke Griffin_ of all people is part of the Ring, that the Ring is even real?”

“Not part of it, Bell,” Octavia said archly, “the head of it. She is the Ring, this place, is the ring, I,” and she paused, taking a few steps towards him, “am the Ring. I’m the one in the mask ‘saving people,’” she raised her hands to follow the quotes, “and I’m good at it.” She stuck her chin out a little at the end of this, but he could tell the way her eyes tracked his face, she was worried about his reaction.

Too bad he was at a loss for words. He set his hands on his hips, looking down at his own muddy and worn boots, a familiar stance between the two of them. “Explain what you mean by ‘saving people’?” He asked flatly, his chest feeling tight. 

Octavia took a deep breath, “I work for Clarke, we,’ she glanced behind her at the statue of a man, “we work for Clarke, among others here. We’re working to make the city safe, safe from the kru wars, from corruption from the elite, and, and everything else,” she said a little unsure at the end. 

“And that entails?” He asked, his tone clipped. 

She moved to open her mouth but Clarke beat her to it as gust of cold air hit Bellamy’s neck and he spun around to see a wall open up behind him, a bright white hallway revealed. “It entails a lot of dangerous shit, but she can handle it, otherwise I wouldn’t send her to do it.” 

Clarke walked toward him, her face no longer a cool calm mask. “Bellamy, I get that a lot of this sounds unbelievable to you, and you have no reason to trust me, especially with your sister, so why don’t you and I take a little walk and I show you how real the Ring is?”

He knew his mouth was hanging open, but he couldn’t help it. He turned back to O, but a smirk was on her face, as she looked unsurprised at the room that Clarke had just unveiled within this one.

“What is this?” He heard himself ask.

“I keep trying to tell you big brother,” Octavia said, coming up and weaving her hand into his, “it’s the Ring. I’m part of it, and you should be too.”

He turned back to look at Clarke as she snorted, “careful O, now you really are making us sound like a cult.” He caught the woman’s eyes, the blue piercing through the darkened room. “Follow me, if you know, you’ve decided not to shoot me tonight,” she cut her eyes to the handgun still laying on the floor from where Octavia had kicked it. 

Bellamy knew that in that moment he had no other option. This couldn’t be real, but at the same time, the more he knew about this woman, the better he’d be able to extricate Octavia from her plans. He moved over to grab the gun from the floor, emptying the clip from the gun before sliding it back underneath his shirt. 

“Lovely,” Clarke said lightly, moving into the bright hallway, “keep up will you?” 

He waiting for Octavia to move after her and followed the high ponytail into the blinding lights and clinical lighting of the room behind the room. He looked back for the tattooed man but he had seemingly dissolved into the shadows. So, he stepped forward.

For a moment he felt as though he’d been teleported to a different planet. Gone was the stone walls and dark mahogany of the Griffin mansion. In its place were sleek, sterile white walls more akin to a high-tech lab. He looked behind him as the door to the fireplace and books swung shut, enveloping them in the light filled room. Now they were simply in a box of white.

Octavia and Clarke moved toward one of the walls, and with a pass of her hand Clarke lit up a panel out of nowhere, pressing her thumbprint to the wall and yet another wall revealed a door. 

“What the fuck did you get us into O?” He asked, wishing there was less awe in his voice. Whatever trick this woman was playing, he had to admit she was covering her bases. O didn’t turn around, though he could tell she was tense, her spine ramrod straight as she followed Clarke through yet another doorway, into yet another stark white room, although this one at least had a long white table in the middle of it. Clarke was still carrying her whiskey glass and set it down on the table, frowning a little at some mark on the clear glass and buffered it away with the edge of her sleeve as she settled into the chair.

“Sit,” she muttered as he shifted back and forth on his feet. 

He didn’t like it, but he didn’t see another choice, so he pulled out the other chair, and sat down.

For a moment there was just silence, Clarke picked at her fingernails. He looked over at Octavia who was mirroring his earlier movements, shifting back and forth uneasily. He knew the body language, O had been caught in a lie. She did the same thing when he confronted her about the multitude of reasons her private school, the one he’d broken his back to pay for, would call him claiming she was responsible for stolen items, broken possessions, a girl’s cut hair, a boy’s broken nose, or a teacher reduced to tears.

Octavia was mayhem walking but she’d never been able to lie well to him. As far as he had been aware, his was the only opinion she cared about. But now he saw clearly in this light, her nervousness had nothing to do with her fall from grace in his eyes, she was worried about _her_ opinion. The Princess of Arkadia. The world was truly upside down.

The silence droned on, Octavia had moved on to picking at the skin on her lips, apparently used to whatever tactic Griffin was employing. Well fine. He wasn’t going to play. He could sit in silence as long as she could. Except now she had simply put her head down into her arms and it would seem that she planned on taking a nap instead.

“Really?” he growled to O and she at least had the manners to look apologetic.

“We’re waiting for someone else. Relax, she had a long night,” she replied.

“Yeah, getting drunk at parties and spending the city’s money,” he shot back, looking pointedly at the now empty whisky glass.

“She wasn’t at a party tonight Bellamy,” Octavia said sighing, “she was overseeing me on a mission, I told you that.”

“Yeah, and this is the Ring, the Princess is also a superhero, and pretty soon Santa Clause is coming in to give us all the gifts we missed out on as kids,” he shot back.

Octavia opened her mouth to retort but at that moment a gust of wind blew the curls off his neck and he turned knocking the chair out from under him to find a way to defend himself. It wasn’t Santa Clause, but it was a young, dark-haired young woman coming into the room from yet another hidden doorway. 

“Look what the Octavia dragged in,” she said, her large, liquid brown eyes appraised him, a wide smile on her lips as she seemed to take him in, consider him, and, as she moved away from his raised fists with little concern, dismiss him just as quickly as she walked over to Clarke who still had her head in her folded arms.

“Who the hell are you?” He asked, getting very tired of random people popping up out of nowhere and going about their business without so much as an introduction.

“I’m Raven,” she said, solving the mystery easily enough, “you should sit down Bellamy.” 

“Why does everyone keep telling me to sit down around here?” He grumbled, but picked up the toppled-over chair and sat anyway. 

“Because we spend a lot of time running to and from things, and sitting is just so much nicer,” Clarke said, her words muffled a bit as she lifted bleary eyes from her arms. He noticed now in clear relief the dark purple circles under blue eyes that were red rimmed with fatigue, a smattering of bruises ran in a necklace around her throat. And then, a warning light went off in his head when he realized the faded pink in her hair wasn’t a tint, but dried blood. 

She had seen the realization dawning in his face, and a mean little smile flitted at the edges of her mouth as he met the famous blue irises. They’d been photographed thousands of times, but he’d never seen this expression in them staring up at him from the front pages of the newspapers. 

“Ah, and there the curtain drops,” she said quietly, leaning back into the chair. 

He stares back at her hard, his heart thumping quicker then when he was pointing a gun at her face. He licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. He should have taken her up on that whiskey offer.

“Let’s start from the top, shall we?” The other girl, Raven, said sitting down across from him. She tapped a code into a keypad on the table and the only wall that didn’t seem to contain a door slid back to reveal everything.

He rose once more from the chair, his legs feeling wobbly as he walked to the big picture window. Instead of the stone walls, red carpets, and dark wood of the mansion he was looking out into a cavern. Longer than two football fields, taller than his and O’s apartment building. It was a cavernous place but instead of stalagmites and streams it was starkly white and clinical, much like the room they were in now. 

It wasn’t populated by many people, but as he glanced around, he could see a training area, weight machines and boxing rings. A gun range at the far end. Scattered all across were screens and tech he couldn’t comprehend, tables lined with diagrams and blueprints, a few people bent over a monitor, headphones clasped to ears. 

He jerked his head back to look at the three women in the room, trying to hide that his palms were sweating as he ran them up and down the worn fabric of his jeans.

“Alright, first things first,” Raven said, jerking her head to lead him back to his chair. “Yes, this is The Ring. No, we are not a myth. No, we are not a ‘cult.’ No, you are not dreaming. Nod your head if you’re on board with those statements.” Raven may have spoken the words, her high ponytail swinging lightly back and forth but he could feel Clarke’s gaze bore into the side of his head. 

He nodded.

“Excellent,” Raven said, “Now the woman to your left is Clarke Griffin, obviously you know _of_ her, but you do not _know_ her.” Bellamy spared a glance to her as she rolled her eyes at the other woman’s statement. “Pay attention,” Raven reprimanded harshly and his eyes snapped back to hers. 

“The person you’ve seen photographed, the person this city knows as Clarke Griffin is merely a persona, something she’s cultivated to cover the massive operation that actually occurs at this compound. Clarke, her parents, and her grandparents started the Ring to save this city, protect it, and ultimately save our people from a greater threat which, you don’t have security clearance for quite yet.” 

He sat up straight in his chair, “what do you-”

Raven held up one long, slender finger, holding his words back, the millions of questions and arguments in place. “Nod if you understand.”

His jaw clenched, but he did so once more.

“Great, so you might imagine this work takes people. But saving people, hunting things, doesn’t come with a regular job application so we’ve been known, from time to time, to recruit based on a set of criteria I myself established. Which led us to your sister.”

At this he looked up at Octavia who had lifted herself away from the wall, “O?” He asked hesitantly. She looked over at Raven who finally did some nodding of her own. 

“Raven and Clarke showed up at our apartment while you were at work, about six months ago,” she started slowly, “whatever is in Raven’s algorithm, it spit out my name from the St. Augustus School. She asked me if I’d like to do something with meaning when I graduated,” she looked up at her brother finally, “and I said yes.”

“What,” he licked his lips, “explain what exactly that entails, please,” he added earnestly and he watched his sister’s face brightened, as she glanced over at the back of Clarke’s head. He looked back at her, she sighed, dipping her chin down. It was apparently the consent Octavia needed to continue.

“Well, tonight Lincoln, Clarke and I bugged a senator’s home. He’s corrupt,” she rushed out at Bellamy’s raised eyebrows, “and we got it done, but there was some trouble with a security guard at the end so we had to make it look like a robbery.”

Her words bounced around his skull a few moments, before he found his voice, “is this a normal thing for you? Breaking into people’s homes, taking away their privacy? This is the job you were determined perfect for?”

He watched her animated face fall, anger shading it again. He’d feel badly about it but his own fist was curling in fury. Clarke Griffin wasn’t a superhero, she was a vigilante out for her own sick amusement. 

“Senator Camus sleeps with girls that haven’t yet picked out their first training bra,” Clarke’s voice, cold and clipped broke through the red in his vision. “He is personally responsible for two murders that I can prove now, and six others I am gathering evidence on as we speak. He makes deals with, and is funded by corporations that have ruined twenty five percent of Arkadia’s farmland. I could go on, but I wouldn’t want to bore you up there on your high horse.”

Clarke stood up, that bored little rich girl look on her face at odds with the fury behind her tone. “You should know, it was Octavia’s sense of justice, her established self defense and acrobatic skills, and her instincts that made her stand out. She did stupid things at that school, but everything she did was in defense of someone that couldn’t defend themselves. She stood out as someone that could do good while living in the grey. She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty if it means a better outcome for her people. I wonder, where she got such thoughts from?” 

He’d never felt such a strange mixture of pride, confusion, and shame before. He couldn’t have collected his scattered thoughts together if he’d been handed a shovel. He risked a glance back at his little sister, his responsibility. He could see a bruise on her chin stand out now.

“This isn’t the life we planned on Octavia,” he voice cracking. 

He could see tears swimming in her eyes, their mother’s green eyes, “No, but it is the life I want,” she said defiantly. “I want to matter, I want to make a difference. I’m not you Bellamy, I won’t waste my life behind a bar, letting the bitterness grind me down.”

The words hurt him like fists, not so much that she believed this of him, of his choices, but that they were true. It was with these words that Ocatvia walked quickly to the same doorway Raven had entered through, not sparing him another glance.

“Well, that’s awkward,” Raven said sardonically into the tense atmosphere. 

“What do you want from me,” he asked woodenly, looking at the point on the table, the clear glass showing his muddy shoes. 

“Your life,” Clarke said from above. He looked up at her, she was still standing, an expression he couldn’t quite discern in her eyes. He couldn’t say he was surprised that she planned on killing him, if he was honest he hadn’t quite expected to survive the night.

“Take a chill pill Griffin, you’re scaring the big bro” Raven said from across from him and he glanced back at her instead, “what she means is, join us or die.”

“That’s not better,” he said faintly, a buzzing in his ears. 

“It is,” Clarke said, “and you have your sister to thank for this situation. Apparently we need to adjust the algorithm for familial attachments and remove those that fit the description.” 

Raven rolled her eyes, “so dramatic. Listen, you’re not dying tonight and if you do it wasn’t us. Your sister is on lockdown for bringing such trouble to our doorstep so you don’t have to worry about her going off on dangerous missions for at least two weeks. There’s a car waiting for you at the end of the gates to take you home to your shitty, sad, little apartment. You have three days to agree to join us, join our work, and keep this secret.”

“And if I don’t?” He asked.

Raven sighed, “really?” she asked questioningly up at Clarke. 

“Come on Bellamy, I’ll walk you out,” Clarke said, the fatigue on her face now layered into her voice. He looked back at Raven but she just raised her eyebrows and gestured for him to follow her.”

“See you soon Big Bro,” the woman called out after him teasingly.

He couldn’t tell you what he was thinking as he followed the mystery of a woman back through the white hallways, into the room of stone and books, down the hallway he had skirted on his way in, her now bare feet padding softly on the plush carpets. He couldn’t help but notice the dust come up from the steps as well. Where everything was starkly clean in the hidden rooms, the main visible places in the mansion seemed to be forgotten. A stage set that no one visited, not even the actors.

They said nothing to each other as he watched the tendrils of hair grace the still darkening bruises on the back of her neck until they reached the main doorway, marble now beneath his feet. He wondered if he looked as shaken as he felt.

She turned at the doorway and he stopped and looked at her. She answered the question on his lips before he could speak it.

“Dax and Sterling aren’t going to be a problem, you won’t be seeing them again,” she said lightly as though she was discussing the weather. “Emerson is getting sloppy as well, I think he might have an accident with the carbon monoxide detector soon.”

“You killed them?” He asked tightly, closing his eyes briefly, not sure if he felt grief for the two men or not. He knew he felt a modicum of relief, and didn’t want to look too closely at the kind of person that made him.

“I very rarely encourage ignorance Bellamy, but in this instance just let it be,” she said, leaning her head against the door and looking up at him. 

The way she said his name sent a shiver down his back, “how will I get in touch, about my decision?” He asked.

“Surprise me,” she said, shrugging. 

“You’re not scared I’ll tell someone the truth?” He asked

Clarke tilted her head softly to the side, and instead of anger he saw sadness there instead. “Who would believe you?”

He knew she was right. He still couldn’t get the newspaper images out of his head when he looked at her. To tell someone that infamous, scandalous, pampered party princess Clarke Griffin was really the head of an urban legend seemed beyond laughable. 

He took a step back, letting her open the door, the warm summer air drifting in. He looked back at her one more time, “why are you doing this? Isn’t being rich enough? Do you have to play with people’s lives as well?”

Her eyes narrowed and he saw the mask go on swifter than blinking, a ditzy little grin and a hand came up to curl a bit of hair around her finger, “oh you know, a girl can only have so many pretty dresses, spending money playing crime fighter is just so more more _fun!_

__Her voice was high and artificial, matching what he’d heard on TV broadcasts and radio shows, the little giggle breathy and all wrong. Just as quickly she wiped it off her face. Letting him see what she thought of his opinion of her. He wasn’t given an opportunity to apologize, even if he had a thought to._ _

__She slammed the door in his face. He stared down the mile long driveway, and started down it, walking toward a world that was very different than when he’d come up it._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Kudos and comments always adored. 
> 
> Did anyone catch the Dean Winchester line?
> 
> Also on tumblr as Hiatus Musings


	4. Appletini Armageddon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A party gone wrong, or right?

Keep the priest in your eyeline, don’t let him talk to the ambassador’s wife.   
Make a comment about the Lightbournes throwing a better party last week.   
Make the Lee’s think they’re falling out of favor with the Kanes.   
Knock back a couple of shots and spit it back out in the beer bottle.   
Ask about Nia’s son, make her think you’re drunk and spilling secrets he’d rather keep hidden. Get invited to the Flamekeepers’ next party. 

This was the catalogue of to-do’s running through Clarke’s mind as she twirled her way around the party. Pretending to be a stuck-up, vacuous, and vicious woman while masterminding the villains of her world was complex and more exhausting than she liked to admit. Sometimes she even ended up drinking the champagne and had Jackson stick an IV in her afterwards to stave off the hangover. 

It was always the same dainty little food. The same mundane conversations and criticisms floating past her ears. The same sour and vampiric souls drifting around her. The only thing that made it fun was the knowledge that she was _winning_ slowly, achingly, the chess match was moving away from stalemate. The only question was how many more pawns would she have to sacrifice to checkmate?

“Been looking for you all night,” a wet voice whispered in her ear, and she tamped down the instinct to crush his balls with the hand not holding a swaying glass flute.

“Cage,” she replied, lacing her voice with as much sugar as possible, turning around to meet his smarmy face, “I didn’t know you’d be here tonight,” she lied, dragging her fingers down his arm. 

“Had some last minute things to discuss with my Father, nothing you’d find interesting of course, but now that it’s done I have all the time in the world for you Princess,” he said, smirking. 

Clarke smiled, genuinely, but not from anything Cage supposed, but because she knew exactly what he had relayed to Wallace senior. She’d held an entire conversation about two warring shoe brands with some high off her ass debutant while angling a speaker hidden in the massive ring on her index finger toward the two, picking up everything that was said ten feet from her. It always made her night a bit better when she knew she was about to make his a bit worse. 

“Well then, let’s have some fun,” she said coyly, tipping her head to her shoulder and letting herself waver a little on the heels. Cage always liked her more than a few drinks in. 

“You need a hand doll?” He asked, pulling her in close, his grasp shifting to cover her back and bring her in. She hated his overpriced cologne. 

“Oh Cage, you know I want to but I’ve made certain promises to Gracie over there, for my company tonight,” she leaned in closer feeling his hand go clammy on her exposed skin.

“You’re a naughty one Griffin,” he growled, but his eyes hungrily searched out the statuesque redhead, the daughter of a prominent family. Gracie turned as though feeling Cage’s hungry gaze across the room, smiling shyly back at the pair. 

Clarke and Gracie were a known item, hooking up every now and then, the pictures of them stumbling into each other’s arms in limos a known quantity. She was also Ring. Recruited three years ago. A decidedly unknown fact to everyone else at this party. 

“You’ll have to take it up with her,” she said, “perhaps Gracie is in the mood for extra company tonight.”

Cage’s eyes darkened to black and she knew with the slackening of his jaw that she would soon be free of him as he tried to ply Gracie to his diminishing charms. But the deck was stacked against him as she was here for just this purpose, to keep the idea of Clarke Griffin alive, while protecting her from the follow through.

“Drink up darling,” he said, “I’ll be back with some fun.” 

Clarke waved a little at his retreating back, careful not to let the smile slip from her face. Gracie met her eyes briefly, touching the necklace at her throat, they’re agreed upon signal.

With Cage off her back, and Arkadias’ snakes momentarily occupied with business the Griffin portfolio didn’t _officially_ hold, Clarke decided to give herself a break. She had time to spend before she could really leave the party, but her feet were killing her, the dress was a size too small to push up her cleavage, and she could still feel a trace of sweat on the small of her back from Cage’s hands.

She made her way to the bar, taking care to wobble just enough to keep the idea intact, and help sell the lie that Gracie had simply taken her home after too many shots, “typical Griffin,” Cage would say. As she slid onto the barstool she couldn’t hide the look of relief as the pressure fell off her feet.

“Appletini,” she said, the petulance in her voice not forced. She hated the drink, but Clarke Griffin was the kind of girl that loved them. And she wanted to keep her true feelings and desires as far away from the facade as possible.

“Anything for the Princess,” the bartender replied and her neck snapped up, the voice too familiar for comfort. The dark curls were tamed, slicked back with drug store gel, and the angry scowl was replaced by a polite and reserved grin, but it was a paltry disguise. 

Bellamy Blake, undercover as part of the catering staff. She tried to suppress the grin. Clarke Griffin didn’t dane to speak to staff unless it was in the form of an order or yelling at the messenger. 

“Don’t give me any of that two day old shit,” she said instead, “how hard can it be for you to make a good drink, it’s lit-er-ally your job.”

“Of course Ms. Griffin,” Bellamy replied seamlessly, not responding to her act as he gathered the spirits in front of her, “but I have a particular recipe I thought you might enjoy.”

Clarke held his gaze a moment longer, before slipping her phone out of a purse and beginning to tap and scroll, “go on then, you don’t have much time left,” she paused looking up at him. The point was clear. It had been two days since he’d broken into her home, broken into the Ring, been given an ultimatum.

He nodded shortly and she watched as he swung the bottles around in a bit of showmanship. It would have taken a fair amount of subterfuge to con his way onto a catering service at the last minute. Not to mention the creation of a fake ID, a switch of fingerprints since his were in the database, stolen set of work clothes, and whatever pain he was going through to pretend that he could take whatever elitist shit she, and the rest of the party guests were dishing out. 

She was trying not to be impressed, or more or less trying not to let it show. She figured he’d pick up the phone and leave a message for Octavia to say he accepted the offer and was just dragging his heels. Her quip about telling him to surprise her had been offhand, brattiness from the exhaustion of the week. Instead he’d taken her up on the request, deciding to figure out a way to tell her in person, while showing off that he knew how easily he’d fit in with their escapades. 

He swung a shaker around his back, peeled an apple, dashed in the vodka, chased in bitters, and set the drink in front of her with a flourish. Her eyes cut over to Gracie, the woman actively not giving Cage the time of day while slipping a few drops into his drink. Cage would discover in a few more minutes how dearly he didn’t want to be in the company of anyone with a sense of smell very shortly. Clarke snickered, she had been willing to play up the drunkenness, but Gracie loved getting rid of assholes with indigestion.

“How have you been enjoying your evening Ms. Griffin?” Bellamy asked her, as he slid the drink closer to her, his fingertips nearly skimming her own.

Clarke rolled her eyes, “you must be new, normally the staff don’t talk this much,” she took a sip of her drink and didn’t have to hide the pleasure on her face. Could the man have actually made a palatable appletini? 

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re at least enjoying the drink,” Bellamy replied tightly and Clarke nearly found herself grinning. Bellamy was going to need to tamp down his righteous indignation if they were going to use him properly. 

“We all must take joy in the little things, I’m sure you know that allllll too well,” she said sweetly, watching his knuckles curl over the edge of the bar top. But then he suddenly relaxed his grip on the bar top, his eyes widening as she saw him realize how she was goading him, testing him. 

He took a step back, transforming once more into an invisible person to those that glittered around him. “Is there anything else you want Miss?” he asked.

Clarke took another sip, staring at him over the rim of the glass. She didn’t have long before she needed to make an exit in her classic style, making sure anyone noticing that Clarke Griffin was holding an actual conversation with a servant forgot it with a much more scandalous performance. 

“You couldn’t imagine the things I want,” she said softly. Bellamy’s eyes furrowed in confusion, and then shock when Clarke picked up her glass and threw the remaining contents right into his face.

“How dare you!” She shrieked as the voices shuttered across the room and Clarke swiveled off the barstool, stumbling a little to show off the impressive amount the dress revealed. 

“Clarke! What’s happened?” Lightbourne had hurried over at once, laying cool hands on her bare shoulders. She didn’t really mind this one so much, at least his paternal concern was pure. Russel was as fooled by her as he was by his terrible daughter Josephine 

“He, he,” Clarke stuttered out, pointing at Bellamy, appletini dripping down his servant’s tux, “he put something in my drink!”

“Are you sure dear?” Lightbourne asked, watching as Clarke made her eyes tear up and she nodded simperingly, his eyes narrowing at Bellamy now, “Guards! Throw him out!”

Suddenly Gracie was over to her and she threw her arms around the taller woman’s shoulder, letting her mascara run a rivulet down her arm.

“Come on babe,” Gracie said loudly, “stop those tears, let’s go back to my place where the help isn’t perverted,” she said glaring around at the party goers. Clarke wailed a bit more and leaned into Gracie as she steered her to the entrance. 

Right on cue Gracie dragged her hand down to cup Clarke’s ass as she nuzzled her face into her neck. She briefly looked over to watch Bellamy get dragged out the back doors. He wasn’t even fighting the men escorting him, although one had obviously already gotten a punch in as the blood spotted his lip. He looked dazed but the sudden turn of events. 

But for now, no one was watching Bellamy. No one would remember his face. Just the scene of Clarke accusing someone at the Lightbourne’s of misconduct.

Gracie and Clarke burst through the doors, laughing and hanging on each other now as the reporter’s lens flashed on Clarke’s limo pulled up. As the valet opened the door for them Clarke leaned against the opening and pulled her friend to her, letting the snaps capture a sloppy kiss, the edges of a smile playing that were real. 

Gracie actually got a kick out of these scenes, and Clarke appreciated the excellent kissing. Gracies’ deeply bigoted parents couldn’t say a damn thing since they were reliant on the Griffin family business, but pissing them off with making the front page again was an added perk of the job. 

Clarke let it carry on a few moments, before pulling Gracie into the limo on top of her, the final images would be of four, tall, outrageously expensive heels tangled together before the door closed and they were safe from the world once more. 

Gracie rolled off her and laid down on the seat across from her, sighing as she slipped the heels off. Clarke buzzed the intercom. 

“Murphy, run the route but hit the back of the servants entrance first. There’s something I need to pick up.”

“Got it,” Murphy replied, playing driver for tonight. And the rest of the month if he kept losing at poker. She didn’t say anything when Emori tagged along. She had a feeling they treated these outings like a date night. 

“How’d it go with Cage?” Clarke asked absently, taking off her own shoes and groaning in relief, hearing the clicks and pops go off in her ankle as she rotated it. The right one had never healed all the way. She kept reinjuring it just enough.

Gracie sighed, tossing out the contact lenses and throwing on her glasses from her purse. Cat-eyed and emerald green. “We’re going to have to figure out a long-term plan for that one.”

“There is a long-term plan for him, but it’s not his happy ending I’m worried about resolving,” Clarke said darkly, “you got this Gracie, he’s got two brain cells to rub together, I trust you.”

She laughed a bit, “alright boss, if you trust me so much tell me why we’re trolling the alley.”

“Oh, I just threw out something by mistake,” Clarke said absently, feeling the limo slow she rolled down the window as they stopped in front of the servant’s entrance, a bloodied and angry Bellamy sitting on the steps. He looked up in shock, and she smirked as she saw the curled peel of the apple still sitting among his own curls. 

“What the fuck?” He growled out.

“What? I couldn’t exactly discuss a pick up plan with all those people milling about. This was efficient,” she said, leaning her arm on the window edge and resting her chin on it.

He looked like he had several things to say to that but instead reached for the door handle. It pulled but didn’t click. He took his hand off it and frowned, “what are you doing?”

“I don’t believe you’ve given me an answer yet Bellamy,” she said plainly, “while I enjoyed the display in there, I’m going to need a real yes.”

He sighed, running a hand through his curls, pulling the apple peel out in disgust, “obviously, it’s a yes. I’ll join your merry band of criminals, however well-funded.”

“Why?” She asked.

“Why?” He echoed back, frowning. “I don’t really have a choice do I? I don’t say yes I end up like Dax and Sterling.”

“What’s wrong with that? she asked.

His eyes widened, “well they’re dead for one.”

She let the grin spread over her face, waiting for him to catch on as his mouth went slack and he ran a hand down his face. He’d shaved his beard off. 

“Those boys just needed money, we’ve relocated them with their families in a very boring and cold place and they’ll be just fine,” she said. 

“So if I hadn’t said yes, is that what would have happened to me?” He asked faintly, “it was never ‘join or die’?”

“I only command death when it’s deserved,” she said, “but I might think it’s deserved in this case if you don’t answer the question, why do you want to join?” 

He stared at her agape, and she waited. 

“For Octavia,” he said, but then his face fell as Clarke sighed, sitting back in the limo. “No, I mean, not just to watch over her, but to make her proud. To help, like she’s helping. I want to change things here. Make them better.”

He said it in a rush, as though he wasn’t even truly aware of it until he said it. Clarke stared at the man, wishing it didn’t hurt so much to know that the change he’d see most is what this work would do to his own soul.

“That’s a pretty good answer,” Gracie said, having taken all the pins out of her hair, the sleek auburn spilling down her face, “maybe we should let him in the car boss.”

Bellamy’s face glanced sharply into the darkness of the cab, and then back to her. 

“You’re right,” Clarke said finally, tapping the lock on the door and scooting across the cushion.

Bellamy hesitantly pulled the handle and shifted into the limo. Murphy hit the gas pedal, speeding through the dark streets. She watched him stare at Gracie, who was reclining on the adjacent seat. “You’re with the Ring too?” he asked.

Gracie smiled and looked over at Clarke, the street lights zooming by the orange lights dancing over their faces. “You smell like apples,” she said finally. 

Clarke and Gracie started laughing at that, the stress of the night finally melting off their shoulders as the city slipped away and they made their way to the acres of land the Griffins owned. 

Clarke caught Bellamy’s eyes and enjoyed the blush that traced up his cheeks, “it’s okay, I think for once I actually like them.”

He did smile at that, leaning back and relaxing as the night carried them onward. Clarke thought he looked more like a boy than a man in the flickering light. She’d seen the expression on his face more than once as she recruited for the Ring. It didn’t matter whether they had once been rich or poor, educated in private schools or learning on their feet, whether they were fueled by revenge or justice. They all looked like they had just found hope.

She so dearly wished she could say they were right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I plan to write more chapters from Clarke's POV but next up it's back to Bellamy as he learns more about how the Ring began, and what his role within it would be. 
> 
> Kudos and Comments loved and appreciated.


	5. Libraries & Chocolate Cake

The alarm in his apartment went off at five am, blaring noise so effectively shrill he nearly woke up fighting. He slammed his fist down a few times on the slim disk resting the nightstand, swinging his legs off the bed. 

If he was still in his old apartment the floor would have been icy to the touch, but at Ring headquarters the floors were, of all things _heated_. It was a luxury he wasn’t used to. Much like the thick mattress he now slept on at night, the food that didn't come from a can, and his new, fitted clothes. He had to admit, leaving his old life behind, even if he still wasn’t totally sure this wasn’t a cult, was going over pretty easy. 

He still didn’t like the wake up call. Plus, there was all the other stuff. Realties about his world he’d been all too happy to ignore up to now. 

His first few days had felt like his scalp was being peeled back, and all the things he thought he knew about his city and the Griffins were proven to be wrong. And that didn’t even count all the tests, and scans, and removal of fingerprints. That wasn’t fun, not by half. A young woman named Harper had cackled a little under her breath as the laser burnt the tips of his fingers off. 

“Rookie,” he could hear her mutter. That seemed to be the only thing the people around here called him. Which was doubly annoying since he was pretty sure he had at least five years on all of them. 

At first he thought he’d be thrown in on missions right away. Stealing secrets and shipments, planting listening devices, blowing up arms at the border. He was very wrong. Instead, he’d spent the larger portion of the last two weeks reading, and learning how the Ring began. Standard stuff for every new recruit, but it was rewriting everything he thought he knew. 

It turns out, the Ring was begun by Clarke’s paternal grandfather. He, and two other families, the Woods and Jahas, had pooled their considerable resources to create the homebase. In the beginning it wasn’t anything like the massive organization that Clarke now led. At first it was simply in response to the shrinking of their world. The excesses and wars of the prior generations had leached the Earth of most of its resources, shrinking down the livable land in North America to the size of what was once called Texas, situated on the eastern seaboard of the old United States. 

After the uneasy peace treaty stitched the newly formed governments of Arkadia, Trikru, Azgeda, and Flokru together, the four cities had been in a cold war ever since. Land grabs, crop destruction, poisonings, assassinations. None of it in an attempt to make anything better for the normal people trying to eek out a life, but only to enrich the oligarchy of families that now ruled. 

Maddox Griffin had suggested the idea of democracy again, and was laughed at. So he turned inward, bringing the two other families he trusted into the fold and they set about attempting to protect what was left, right under the nose of the poisonous thread of government that lay at the top. 

Only about a million people were left on this sad spot of the hemisphere. Bellamy supposed he should feel lucky that by chance his ancestors had managed to survive to this point. He wasn’t sure if he should be thanking them just yet. 

“I don’t get it, I thought the Ring was just about protecting Arkadia, but half of those supplies got re-routed to Floukru as well,” he said, frustrated as Monty talked him through the last month of agriculture-ops he’d designed. 

“Right,” Monty sighed, “listen man, this whole ‘protecting Arkadia City Superhero thing,’” he said putting the last bit in quotes, “that’s comic books stuff. The enemy isn’t, and never has been the other three krus. This is about finding a way to feed people, to bring in the resources we need to solve the larger problem of the families controlling the strings.”

“But the stories are that…” Bellamy trailed off, staring over at the large fireplace. A painting hung on the mantle, he assumed it was Maddox Griffin, that blonde hair a giveaway. This felt like it was happening every few minutes. He’d learn something new and have to recalibrate his assumptions. Half the time it was thrilling. The other half he just felt like an ass. 

“Don’t worry about it Bellamy,” Murphy said, smiling kindly. “I mean, half the time we’re the ones spinning out those rumors. And it’s the families who are at each other’s throats because of it, not the people.”

He nodded slightly, before seeing the tall doors to the library break open. Clarke walked in, wearing what seemed to be her standard Ring uniform of ripped jeans and a man’s crew neck sweatshirt. Her hair pulled up in a messy bun. He told himself to stop that. Stop noticing the boss’s hair. He had hated this woman, no, he corrected himself, this ‘idea’ of a woman with such a passion only a week ago. Poured most of his energy into it really. The anger had been like a friend at times, keeping him company. He felt a little hollow not being able to rely on it anymore.

She walked over to their table, smiling warmly at Monty and resting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Hate to break up the study group but I need Monty in the bay, Jasper’s trying to talk me into bombing Roan’s castle again and I’m worried that it’s starting to actually make sense this time.”

Monty grinned in reply, “yeah, that sounds explosive,” he said pulling his chair out, “Big Bro here doesn’t need much more from me though, he’s smart, got the general feel of it all already.”

“Good,” Clarke said, smiling tightly, “can’t wait to see what you come up with.” She turned away quickly, walking back out the doors. 

“She couldn’t have just sent you a message?” Bellamy asked gruffly, staring resolutely back at the pages detailing crop growth in the far west of Polis. Since he’d arrived he’d caught glimpses of Clarke in the hallways and down in the main training areas. He’d also watched her take down three guards in live footage as Monty supervised her break into a warehouse in northern Azgeda territory, and then in recorded audio listened to her work Russel Lightbourne into admitting he was blackmailing Trikru merchants into a blockade after she had casually mentioned that she couldn’t get her favorite fish tacos at the restaurant down the street. 

All these things had started to build a new understanding of this mystery of a woman, but he had yet to have another actual conversation with her. The last one in the limo had made him feel like perhaps this could be a friend, but the last two weeks had all been cold stares and almost indifferent brush offs. 

Monty carefully school his face into neutral, “she probably just wanted a break, Jasper gives her a hard time.”

Bellamy nodded obliquely, simply filling the note that Jasper was an antagonistic force to Griffin away, “I’m good here, I’ll finish up these reports, and then…” he trailed off. Did he just go to his quarters? To bed? Was it even nine o’clock?

“Octavia,” Monty said, and Bellamy froze, “she’ll be in the mess hall in about 15 minutes trying to sneak extra desserts out of the cooks. She’s pretty successful at it since Murphy is a chickenshit at heart. But you didn’t hear it from me.”

Bellamy looked up at the man, searching his face for something ulterior. But, he was coming to find out, he wouldn’t with this one. Monty Green was good. 

“Why are you-” he began.

“Bury the hatchet man,” Monty said, sliding his backpack up on his shoulders, looking no older than a kid going off to university instead of building bombs in a secret hero department. “Clarke wants her back in the field but is worried that she’s distracted, so she’s going on the missions herself, and we need Clarke here. If she’s gone from the scene too long we could miss out on invites to events that supply a lot of our intelligence. So have it out with your sister so we can get back to business,” he waved his hands at the reports in front of him. 

“Right,” Bellamy muttered, “cafeteria, 15 minutes.”

“Awesome,” Monty said, brightly again, “come down to the bay tomorrow, 8 am. I want to see you break down a potential op.”

Bellamy looked up at him in surprise and Monty shook his head grinning. “I meant what I said to Clarke, you’re a natural man, you see holes in routes and opportunities we missed. You got this.”

Despite himself, the praise felt good. He’s pretty sure he mumbled a thank you as Monty tossed a hand goodbye and walked out the library doors. 

***  
Clarke had left the library after relaying her message to Monty and decided to do a little...hiding. It was a Saturday evening and she’d cancelled on a party at the McCreary's. Not good form, but currently none of the dresses she’d have to put on would cover the bruise that raced up her side and licked at her collarbones.

It was something she was really good at, a skill honed as a child running around a mansion without a single child her age within miles. Then, as she got older hiding from the drills, and lessons needed to prepare her for taking the reins of the Ring. 

Sometimes, when the three families led by Becca Woods, Thelonious Jaha, and Jake and Abby Griffin came together for a meeting they would bring their kids, Lexa and Wells. Clark would have playmates for a time. This had been her microscopic community. Her parents, Lexa and Wells.

But, despite those little interludes of camaraderie and family, she had spent most of her time growing up doing what she was doing now. Finding a small little nook, high up, down low, or simply hidden behind large objects to curl up into and watch the going-ons. She had learned more about the inner workings of this place in these times than any other.

It had occurred to her that she was doing to her employees, the team that trusted her to create a better world, was the same thing she did to their enemies. Watching. Listening. Filing away useful information, informing decisions they had no idea were being made. A small, dark part of her knew she should be ashamed of how she monitored their lives. But an even more twisted part knew it was hardly the worst thing she could do. In the end it would be to save them, wouldn’t it?

In a strange way, it made her feel more connected to these people she’d recruited. A way to be part of their lives without having to be ‘on’. This newly-built family. Once her parents, the Woods and Jahas had been decimated she’d been entirely alone. Trying to pick up the pieces, building a new crew to make the sacrifice of her old one worth it. But it was hard. So hard to smile when she wasn’t pretending to be the socialite. So hard to talk about anything other than missions and rations when that was all that had been acceptable to care about. So hard to show that she cared about their bruises and fractures and deaths when she’d been taught to see pain as what made you stronger. 

So, she did her best to act like a person. Wondering if the things she liked were simply part of a character she’d built for herself, another disguise, or if her impulses were real. She wondered if it really mattered. 

Odd, that the brother of Octavia, a man seemingly so unlike her in temperament and instinct would be the first one in so long to turn her mind from anything other than the Ring. It was actually pretty annoying. She found herself making odd choices. Finding reasons to walk down a hallway he may be in. Keep his sister out of harm to spare him the added stress. Wonder if his hands felt as warm as they looked. Dangerous thoughts. Thoughts that get people killed. 

It was the sick push and pull of want and discipline that found her sitting behind a disconnected refrigerator in the kitchen. There was even a blanket back here and a slice of the cake wrapped in foil. Murphy knew it was one of her hiding spots. He alone wasn’t someone she could get the drop on. A fellow cockroach respected the trade. 

She leaned her head against the cool wall. She was dizzy from the concussion suffered two nights prior. It was stupid. She had been too close to the detonation. But combined with Jasper’s general attitude on life and her sore brain, hiding a bit sounded like a great idea. Never mind the long game she was, for whatever reason she didn’t want to examine too closely, apparently playing with the Blakes. 

She wanted to talk to Bellamy about his sister. She firmly told herself to stay out of it. So she hit the compromise. She made sure there was enough cocoa for chocolate cake in the last ration run, and made sure Monty thought she was concerned about Octavia returning to the field. Push. Pull. Settle. Exhausting.

Restless Octavia had twirled in with Lincoln by her side only a few minutes later. Clarke pulled her knees up to her chin, slowing her breathing until she was as silent as a tomb. For a few minutes it was just the scrap of forks on plates, Octavia and Lincoln talking quietly, intimately. More said in the silences of fingers entwining than in words spoken. 

A part of her ached, wondering if she could remember what that had been like with Lexa. But the years felt too far away. She shuddered, closing the top on that thought fast. 

Then Bellamy walked in, shuffled more like it. The voices ceased and Clarke held her breath.

“What are you doing here?” Octavia asked harshly, “Now I can’t even make my way to the cafeteria without your supervision?”

“No,” Bellamy grunted. Clarke leaned back a little, able to watch them from the crack between the working fridge and the dead one. “I was hoping we could talk, if you’re willing.”

Octavia’s back was to Clarke, but she could see the tips of her ears turn pink. Lincoln’s face was in a shadow but Clarke could imagine that it was as still and composed as it always was. He stood up slowly. 

“You two should talk,” Lincoln said assuredly, “I’ll see you on the mats babe.”

“Fine,” she replied sullenly, sitting back down on the bench. Clarke heard Lincoln’s steps recede out the hall, and Bellamy’s heavy shuffle as he took his place next to Octavia. 

“You can’t have any of the cake,” she said bluntly and Clarke watched Bellamy’s mouth twitch into a smile. 

“Well at least that hasn’t changed,” he said. Octavia must have smiled at that, because she saw Bellamy duck his head, his expression soft in a way she was sure was reserved for his little sister.

“How have you been handling it all?” She asked finally, always too uncomfortable with the silence. They were working on that with her, she was still shit at interrogations.

“Eye-opening,” he said softly, “feels good to know the truth though. To be honest I’m just relieved you’re okay. Everything else is just a very strange kind of gravy.”

Ocatvia snorted, nodding a little into the cake. “I’m sorry about not telling you,” Octavia she said. “But you have to understand Bell, for so long all I could do was hide away from the world. In that school. At home. The gym. I’m grateful that you raised me, that you protected me, I am,” she laid a hand on his arm, Bellamy’s face pensive now, “but the world was always going to intrude. At least now I have some control over it. The way we lived before we were going to just be swept up in the wave of whatever the families did next. I need a say in my life. Isn’t that why you’re here too?”

She saw his eyes go wide, his hand coming up to curl around Octavia’s. “I haven’t had a lot of time to think about the why,” he said. “It feels right though. When you were gone it was like I lost a limb.”

Octavia pulled her hand out from his sighing and she watched his face fall, “I can’t be that thing for you Bell. this whole ‘my sister, my responsibility’ it’s too much to live up to. It’s why I wanted this thing to be mine, at least at first.”

“Well, sorry for caring,” Bellamy replied stiffly. He turned away from her, his expression darkening. The two sat uncomfortably for a moment. “Do you not want me here? That night, when I thought I was saving you, you told me I should join. But if you don’t I’ll-”

Clarke’s hands curled around her knees.

“No!” Octavia voiced the opposition in cadence with Clarke’s own thoughts, so that for a moment she shocked herself into thinking she’d actually spoken it. “Of course I want you here. I missed you. So much. Clarke already said you’re a natural, Monty too.” The heat rose up on Clarke’s cheeks, she rubbed at them stiffly.

“Clarke said that?” He asked.

Octavia must have smiled in some way because next Bellamy shook his head, “stop it O.”

“What? I missed teasing my brother,” she said laughing, and sliding the plate with the last bite of cake on it, “go ahead. I’m pretty sure Murphy made a deal with the devil for this, it’s that good.”

Bellamy picked up the fork, but before taking the bite he looked at his sister, his face serious. “I am proud of you Octavia. I’m sorry about those things I said that night. I was just so scared. You’re all I have, and this whole ‘thing’-” he waved his fork around indicating the Ring, “it was just so different than what I knew.”

Octavia jerked her head sharply. “That’s the thing Bell, I’m not your only person now. The second you joined, you joined a family. Here, we risk everything for the goal, not for just one person.”

Clare watched Bellamy sit back, a myriad of emotions seeming to pass over his face all at once. Octavia seemed to be steeling herself for sharp reply, her head was bowed, picking at her fingernails.

“Okay,” he replied finally.

“Okay? Just like that? Octavia asked incredulously.

“I’m not fighting with you O. I think you’re right. I’m just hoping you take me along for the ride.”

She assumed Octavia’s face broke into a smile, her voice animated and relieved. “Yeah, of course. Maybe you’ll even get to come on my missions,” she said lightly, and Bellamy’s eyebrow went up.

“Your missions?”

“Well yes, I’m the veteran to your rookie. You’ll have to listen to my orders,” she said, laughing as Bellamy raised the fork to his messy curls in a mock salute. 

The tension eased away, palpable like a breath had been let out. They simply chatted back and forth in the way Clarke imagined they’d grown up doing. Talking about the people in their old neighborhood, what the girls from Octavia’s school were doing now. The idea that Dax and Sterling were likely up in the tundra of Azgeda territory. 

They left together, long strides matching, limbs loose. For the time being it would appear the Blake siblings back in tempo. She wondered when she’d find herl rhythm again, or if Bellamy’s introduction had somehow altered her forever. 

***  
It was a knock at the library door a week after fixing things with Octavia that startled him back to the world. He’d been engrossed in the latest batch of mission reports, detailing how Clarke had infiltrated a metal factory in Trikru territory and he’d been stuck on a particular piece of description surrounding the original purpose of the factory, the long defunct storage area for NASA, of the old America. 

“Come in?” He said, confused. He was often the only one in the library, the rest of the Ring’s people seemed to prefer the bright lights of the main cavern, but he hardly thought anyone would think to knock before entering the public space. He was even more confused when the doors pushed open and Clarke stood at the entrance. 

“Clarke?” He asked, as though his constant state with this woman was a varied state of confusion. 

“Hey,” she said lightly, tilting her head a little, “I was hoping to find you here.”

He frowned, “don’t you know where everyone is always?”

She rolled her eyes, “yes, but I’m told it’s not polite act like I can track your every movement.”

“So more lies?” He sniped back. He didn’t know how she kept bringing this side out of him. He was actually a little disappointed when she didn’t take the bait. 

“Actually, I need to make an apology,” she said lightly and he leaned forward in surprise. 

“Oh?” he replied, not enjoying how his heart rate sped up, once again, she did the unexpected. 

Clarke walked further into the room, dressed comfortably in dark jeans and a light blue sweater. “I listened to Octavia,” she said, a small smile playing at her lips. When had he started noticing _that_?

“The downfall of many of my better angels,” he replied, relaxing a little. This seemed like it had the potential to not be a fight if he could act like a normal person. He nodded to the seat beside him. She sat down, and he could smell the light perfume she wore as she moved into his space. 

“I mean, I made a mistake listening to her, about you,” she reached out, laying a hand on his to stop his work on the page, bringing his eyes up to meet her. “In practice, I find that when it concerns family, judgements are clouded. She swore up and down that you wouldn’t be able to handle hearing what she was doing. That you wouldn’t be able to work for someone of my background. That having you around meant putting her on a leash, and as we both know, Octavia does her best work without a fence line.”

Bellamy huffed, tossing the book away from him on the table. “Listen, Octavia and I, we already settled this, I don’t need you to-”

“Calm down,” Clarke said, sliding the book over to herself and lightly turning the pages, seeming to inspect the words closely. “I realized too late that those were the words of a child wanting to hold out until they knew they could make their parent proud. You trained her, she’s only as good as she is, because you’re even better. That’s a lot to live up to. And, in her own way, she was protecting you from this world, this mission. She knew you would never turn down the chance to be the good guy.”

Bellamy leaned back, the words sinking like a stone and then rising just as suddenly as a lump in his throat. Clarke remained as she had during the confession. Giving him the privacy of turning her eyes to pages she was only pretending to read. 

“I’m not her responsibility, she’s mine,” he said finally, at a loss as to how to fully respond. “She shouldn’t have lied to me about all of this.”

“Yes, well, I could have ignored her reasonings, and chalked it up to that familial bond I’ve heard so much about,” she replied dryly, flipping another page over. “But instead, we forced your hand and made your life very difficult for many months. Something that was wholly preventable and unnecessary, and I very much dislike causing pain for unnecessary reasons. That’s what I’m sorry for. I should have trusted my instincts and brought you into the fold when we did Octavia.”

“Well, thank you,” he said running his hands together, staring at her as she looked up from the print and those arresting blue eyes caught his...and held. If Bellamy knew how to breathe, the understanding escaped him at the moment. But as suddenly as the moment formed, Clarke broke it pulling away, and he could almost feel his heart fall as a grimace crossed her and she slammed the edge of the book over, closing it and sliding it away from them both as she hopped off the stool.

“You’re welcome,” she said brusquely, “and also Monty told me to tell you they’re all getting a drink at Go-Sci, and you’re invited.”

“This Monty’s invitation or yours?” He asked, a little more forceful than he intended, but he felt like he’d been given the brush off. 

“It’s Monty’s invite,” she said, apparently indifferent to his tone, “and I won’t be there. My alter ego will be making an appearance at a charity ball for some, I don’t know, plants or whatever. I have to go get ready, make headlines, drink a gallon of champagne, and throw some money at maples.”

“You are a very strange woman,” he said finally. 

Clarke barked out a laugh as she walked away from him, “oh Blake, you’ve no idea what kind of woman I am.”

He didn’t imagine the shiver that went up his spine at the sultry spin of her words as her back turned the corner, and the last strands of blonde hair disappeared. It took him longer than he’d like to admit gathering the equilibrium to walk out of the grand library, and even longer to shake the image of her laughing and dancing in the arms of glamorous, rich, and poisonous people.

***

How many times had he seen these news reports before coming to work at the Ark? Clarke Griffin stumbling out of a club at 4 in the morning, more diamonds dripping off her throat than his shitty shower threw out water. 

Clarke Griffin answering questions about the city’s homeless crisis from protestors in a bored, slurred tone as she tossed her hair back muttering something about trying to find a decent year of champagne. 

Clarke Griffin caught in the back of a limo by a paparazzi's camera, her legs spread over some model’s lap, her skirt hiked up dangerously high. You either loved watching her antics for the tragic “poor little rich girl” storyline, or you hated her. 

The rage and voyeurism steamrolling any other critical thought like “she hobnobs with a lot of political kinds at these functions” or “the ambassador to Sandegrku found her to be a delightful conversationalist in their native tongue,” or even, “she was the one that invited that mob boss to that charity function before his plane had that fatal landing.”

Little things, here and there. Her name floating around between the people that moved money and lives. Her parties wrapped up in openings and awards that served to bring otherwise disparate people within bullet’s reach. No one ever putting it together. 

Who would? Not Bellamy certainly, not before discovering the truth. But now, he looked up at the bar tv watching it unfold in a new way as he joined the rest of the Ring’s inhabitants for a drink. He saw, just barely, the drunk facade as she waved too eagerly at the camera, her chest nearly slipping out of the dress, twirling down the red carpet of her latest party. 

“She’s good at it,” Raven said next to him, tossing her hand up with the beer held precariously full, “pretending.”

Bellamy looked down at the dark haired woman, blue bruised rings under tired eyes. He had a hard time figuring out the relationship between the two women. It seemed to pull between sisterhood and spitefulness. 

“Why does she do it?” He asked the same question he’d posed to her the first night, wondering if he’d get a better answer. “There’s gotta be a better way to collect intelligence.” Raven’s eyes betrayed nothing, so he pushed on. “Why does she let herself be a spectacle like that, make people think she’s just another rich drunk asshole fucking over the city.”

“It’s protection,” Monty said, a small smile on his face as he glanced up at the TV above their booth just as Clarke took a header into a camera crew. 

“How is _that_ protection?” Bellamy inclined his beer back behind them. 

“Because tonight every news team will open their broadcasts with the latest exploits of the Griffin embarrassment, and not the fact that there will be a train derailment at the border,” Monty replied, the smile a little steelier. “You can ask your sister about it later.”

“Shit,” Bellamy said, lowering the bottle back down, “I didn’t even know she was on a mission tonight. Shouldn’t one of you be overseeing that or…” he trailed off as the group stared at him. 

“We’ve got comms handled Bellamy,” Harper said laughing, “and she and Lincoln are probably just going at it in a car a mile away from the crossing waiting to pull a trigger. The mission,” she said making air quotes, “was last week while they placed the explosives on the train cars and Monty, Raven, and I got them through it just fine.”

“You need to calm down Blake,” Murphy snickered at him from the end of the booth, “and enjoy the show, she’s almost at the grand finale.”

Despite himself Bellamy craned his neck back up as Clarke jumped up from her fall into the TV crew as the lights flashed, she waved, a wide smile plastered on her face as Cage Wallace greedily wrapped his hands around her waist. Something tightened around his lungs. He thought he might have seen a nearly imperceptible falter to her smile as the hands roamed too low, but it was gone before it was really there. 

“Someone so good at pretending,” Bellamy said, turning back around to look at them, “how can you really trust her?’

He watched Monty’s eyes shift to meet Murphy’s. His in turn glancing toward Ravens who stared pointedly down at the table, unwilling to meet Harper who frowned at her and Emori who shook her head and whispered something into Murphy’s ear. 

“We like you Blake,” Monty said, and for the first time Bellamy felt a shiver run down his back at the tone in the normally friendly scientists’s voice, “but step lightly. Even the people at this table that hate her a bit, he glanced over at Raven, would still step in front of the firing range for her. If you’re unlucky enough you’ll find out why.”

Bellamy blinked, “that’s ominous,” he said.

Murphy sniggered, tugging lightly at Raven’s ponytail until the woman’s face relaxed. “That’s the Ring’s specialty. Ominous warnings and too much running. All to play hero.”

“But that’s not really it, is it? Why you do, what you do?” He asked, tipping the bottle back and letting the dregs hit the back of his throat. The reporter had moved onto that week’s weather report. Still no mention of an explosion at the border. 

“Can’t go giving away all our secrets at once cadet,” Raven said suddenly, too brightly. The fake smile dripping onto her face as she snaked a cool arm around his back. She whispered the last bit into his ear, “but look sharp, your first mission is next week. If you stay alive we might let you learn one or two of them.”

Bellamy set his empty bottle down, looking around at the careful faces that surrounded him. “If I ever find out the real goal, the real reason you're all doing this. I’m not going to be very happy, am I?

Their uneasy looks at each other all but confirmed the answer and he sighed, running his hands across his face. “Nothing’s easy is it?” He asked.

“Cheer up Big Bro,” Raven breathed into his face, “What I can tell you is that the fun is just beginning.”

It should have been lighthearted, but she said it mournfully, and it set the silent table crashing even further into somber looks. 

“You guys suck at Happy Hour,” he said, and that at least turned a few smiles upward. 

“You should see us funerals,” Murphy drawled, flagging down a server and setting the tray of shots on the table, “come on, your first mission is coming up. It’s tradition.”

“Wait, what?” Bellamy said, his eyes widening as the shots zoomed past him, “I haven’t gotten orders, I-”

“These are your orders,” Murphy said waving him off, “Clarke texted a few minutes ago, we break it down in the morning and leave next evening.”

His heart rate picked up even as he watched Harper throw three shots down in a row. These people were insane. 

“We?” He asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

“Yeah,” Murphy said nonchalantly, “you, me, baby Blake and Clarke,” it’s gonna be great. We’ll probably all die.”

“Shut up Murphy,” Monty said frustrated, “you’ll be fine, I designed this one myself.”

“What are we doing?” He asked cautiously, the hum of the bar patrons drowning out any curious ears. 

“That’s the best part,” Murphy said, “we get to kill someone. No agro-runs for the dream team.”

Bellamy’s heart dropped, “who?”

Monty lifted his beer bottle back at the screen, just as Cage Wallace appeared back on it. 

“Looks like Clarke’s tired of dealing with him,” Raven said.

“That’s all it takes for us to get a kill order?” He asked quietly. 

No one answered him, so he took a deep breath and downed the shot in front of him, the liquor doing little to quell the slick of fear that now rested in his stomach. The time for books and theories were over. The hard facts of what it took to accomplish the Rings varied and mysterious goals were laid before him. 

Bellamy only wished he fully understood what he was going to become a killer for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, hope you enjoyed! This one took me awhile to figure out. As always kudos and comments appreciated. I'm on tumblr too as Hiatus Musings.


	6. Cage Wallace Must Die

Clarke was walking back down the dormitory wing, bloodied bandages and disinfectants held rigidly in her hands, when Bellamy turned the corner at the end of the hallway storming up to meet her.

For a moment she almost felt relief. The calm presence he seemed to radiate to all those around him was something she was searching for at this moment. Those hopes were dashed instantly though when she saw the ugly twist to his face come closer, hands balled into fists, dark hair run back against his scalp like he couldn’t stop tossing his fingers through it.

She slowed to a stop, waiting for him to reach her. When he did, it seemed like he’d forgotten for a moment where he was.

“Bellamy?” She asked slowly, letting her uncertainty give him the lead. He’d obviously been searching the dormitory for her.

“Murphy, he said I’m going on a mission tomorrow,” he said, the words coming out all tight. 

“Yes,” she said evenly, still not seeing what would bring this on. The Bellamy she’d slowly gotten to know was one that enjoyed challenges, where was this _anger_ coming from?

“He said it’s a kill order, on Cage Wallace,” he continued. 

Clarke took a breath, the name making her blood boil after the hours she’d just spent dealing with the ramifications of his existence. “Yes,” she said, pleased that nothing shook in her voice.

His eyes narrowed, apparently she was doing something to annoy him. 

“Why?” He bit out, “why are we killing someone, why is that the thing that will make the world better?”

Her heart thudded in her chest, and another feeling, frustration. It had been awhile since she had been challenged like this. Respect for her authority was nearly paramount in these walls. Being questioned on her decisions wasn’t something she liked. 

“Cage Wallace has outlived his usefulness," she said firmly.

“Is that all it takes then?” Bellamy stepped in front of her, blocking her way as she went to move around him, forcing her to step back and look up at him. “Should I be looking over my shoulder, making sure the axe doesn’t fall on my neck next time you’re angry you got felt up at a party?”

Anger curled tight around her spine, her fingers clenched on the metal in her hands _don’t break his face before a mission_ she reprimanded herself. Anger was useless. Her Mother had taught her that over and over. It’s only a reaction, reactions fade. 

“In this line of work you should always be looking over your shoulder Bellamy,” she said, "paranoia saves lives." He took a step back, his eyes widening as he shook his head at her. He glanced down momentarily as the clutter in her grasp, his gaze narrowing again. 

“What’s all this?” He asked, confusion clouding the anger in his voice. 

“Gracie sustained some injuries, I was just fixing her up,” she said.

“Is she okay?” He asked, concern softening the edges of fury on his face as he took in the bloodied bandages and suture needles laying on the tray.

“Yes,” Clarke replied, enjoying in a sad little way that he was suddenly off-step. Point back to her. _Stop it_ , she thought to herself. 

“Well,” he hesitated, “what happened?”

She could leave him like this. Clarke thought suddenly. She could tell him, in barest detail what had happened and let him feel the guilt and anger and shame that coursed through her too. Make him bear it as well. It was nice to pretend for a few moments. 

She sighed, making her choice and stepped away from him. “Cage Wallace happened,” she said watching Bellamy’s eyebrows shoot up. “He got tired of her being an obstacle to me and he didn’t enjoy it when she put up a fight about it.”

“What happened?” He asked agin, stepping forward into her space again. What was this? An attempt at comfort? 

Clarke looked around the quiet dormitory. Even if there was no one in sight, she had been training and filling these halls with dozens of spies. Just because you didn’t see someone, didn’t mean they weren’t listening. And Gracie deserved whatever privacy Clarke could give her. 

“Follow me,” she said finally, side-stepping him quickly before he thought to block her way again. She let him trail behind her, leading him to the infirmary. The beds were all empty here, and she worked quickly, disposing of the bandages and placing the instruments in a sterilizing solution. 

It took several minutes before she was done, but Bellamy left her to it in silence, not saying a word as she peeled off the gloves she wore to reveal bloodstained hands. She could feel him move behind her, a bar of soap appearing in her line of vision. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly, watching the blood drip off into the water and she scraped out her fingernails. The tight dress she still wore from the party digging into her skin. She didn’t usually perform surgery dressed up in the socialite’s garb, but unfortunately time was of the essence tonight.

“Are you a medic as well?” Bellamy asked as she dried off her hands and reached beneath the sink cupboard to pull out a pair of sweats, the fabric well worn and comforting. She slipped behind a partition pulling off the sequins, listening to him shift on his feet. 

“Trained as a surgeon beneath my mother,” she said finally, “but Jackson is the one that actually went to medical school. If it’s something that requires more than a patch up he’ll take care of you.”

“Is there anything you can’t do?” He replied, a trace of humor in his voice. Clarke frowned, as she slipped the sweater over her head. Her hair was still tied back in a complicated braided pattern from the evening, so she left it in. As long as there were no bobby pins digging into her skull it would keep her hair back better than a sloppy ponytail. 

“Well, apparently I can’t seem to earn your trust,” she said, stepping back out from behind the partition, just in time to watch his eyes rove over her. She knew she couldn’t stop the flush that rose from her cheeks. He couldn’t have taken the time to do that when she was in the tight dress? 

He sighed, “trusting people isn’t exactly something that comes naturally to me,” he said, his arms falling down at his side. 

Clarke rolled her eyes, crossing her arms beneath her chest now as she walked up to him. “You want to know what happened tonight?”

His lips parted as though he had a retort ready, but she raised an eyebrow and he snapped them shut and nodded sharply instead. 

“Cage Wallace is scum. I think you’re already aware of that. But he’s scum we’ve been able to use effectively since we have something he wants.”

“You?” Bellamy asked and she nodded.

“This is where you say something like ‘no accounting for taste,’” she reminded him and enjoyed the way his eyes widened at her try for humor. 

“I wasn't going to say that,” he said defensively. 

Clarke snorted, sighing heavily as she walked over to one of the empty beds, curling up on top of it, resting a knee below her chin. She looked down at the space across from her and Bellamy hopped up, resting his back against the wall, staring at her. Waiting. 

“Cage Wallace and his father own a few thousand tracts of land in western Arkadia. Did you know that?” She asked.

He nodded, “yeah, been memorizing all the land holdings.”

“Well, there’s a series of mountain ranges crossing that land, important territory because it creates a natural barrier to storms, dust bowls, agricultural blights, basically shitty things we can’t afford to come for the viable farmland left,” she said. 

“Alright,” he said, resting his chin in the palm of his hand, “that’s a good thing, even if it’s owned by bad people.”

She smiled softly, “it’s not the mountain range I raise issue with, it’s what they’re keeping inside of it. If you think this bunker is filled to the brim, it’s nothing like what the Wallace family has been stocking away. Supplies that could feed, clothe, and give security to the entirety of Arkadia population for five years.”

Bellamy sat up straighter, interest tracing his face, “why would they need anything like that for just themselves?” He asked.

Clarke waved a hand in front of her face, “greed, fear that they can never have enough, just general shittiness. Take your pick. We’ve known about the fact that it exists, what we hadn’t been able to pinpoint before now, before tonight really, was the exact entrance, security codes, and points of weakness.”

“So now that we know it,” Bellamy said, realization dawning on him, “we don’t need to keep Wallace around.”

“Like I said, outlived his usefulness,” Clarke said succinctly. “Normally, I would just set a plan in motion to bring down their dynasty, frame up a few things, get enough dirt out there to keep them running scared. Either way, off the game board.”

“So what makes him different?” He asked, “why is tomorrow a catch and kill instead of simply ruining their lives?”

Clarke looked down at her hands, pale and pink from scrubbing away the blood, “Gracie is the one who got the info we needed. She went back to his rooms promising a quick hook up, thought he was out cold from the drugs, which normally work but- I don’t know, I guess this time he didn’t take enough. Either way, he found her snooping, and beat the shit out of her.”

“That fucker,” Bellamy growled, “how did she make it out?”

She stared at her hands, “she couldn’t fight back, even though she could wipe the floor with him, I trained her myself. What would he have though if some dumb girl from parties, one that was seen with me all the time, was suddenly kicking his ass? It would start to seem suspicious, so she just, let it happen. Made it sound like she was just looking for dirt on him, so she could keep me all to herself,” she said, her tongue tripping over the words. 

“I’m sorry Clarke,” he said softly, and suddenly her hands were cupped in his. His large ones folding hers over and within them until she couldn’t see the phantom blood pooling there. “Will she be okay?”

She felt the heat of his skin, let herself focus on that instead of the anger in her veins. “He left her in his room afterwards, came back outside to the party. He broke her ribs, gave her a concussion, he used...he had his rings on. So I had to stitch up a lot,” her voice sounded all strangled. “She let him do that, and still completed the mission, still protected me, while I was outside the house, feet away from her, glamming it up for the cameras. We were lucky she was able to keep it together enough to call for an extraction.” 

She couldn’t help the tears streaming down her face, “Cage did this to her, but the only reason he had the opportunity was because of me. I’m the reason she was there.” She looked up at him now, “So yeah, it’s a kill order, because I’m not a good guy either and I don’t mind having his blood on my hands.”

They sat like that for moments, or minutes, or forever, Clarke couldn't tell. She couldn’t remember the last time she been like this with someone. When it hadn’t been an act. 

“Clarke I shouldn’t have,” he hesitated, “I don’t know why I reacted like that,” he said, “I’ve wanted to make a difference since I got here, I’m ready, I just, when I heard it was a kill order it just spooked me.”

She took a shuddering breath, “that’s not a bad thing Bellamy, it should scare you, to know you’re going to take a life. It’s not a line you can uncross, even if you do it on orders.”

He shook his head, eyes down now the dark hair curling into his eyes, lashes just as dark. “You seem to have a knack for making me say dumb shit Clarke.”

She snorted, pulling her hands from his and stepping lightly off the bed, her bare feet slapping the tile floor softly. “It’s not a crime to have questions about the mission, the set up, the routes. It’s all up for discussion and debate. It’s why you’re here, to make each one more seamless, safer for all of us. To make sure we complete them and achieve the goal, but-”

“Has Monty forgotten to teach me the golden rule?” He interrupted, “there seem to be no rules here, but at the same time, so many,” he said, standing up again, his hand shoved deep in his pockets. The sight of his shoulders rising at the movement made something flip in her stomach.

Clarke took a breath, wondering what to say. It had been easier with the others. What was so different about him? 

“The Golden Rule is a bit tarnished these days,” said finally, “we should both get some sleep. We need to get everything arranged tomorrow morning and be at Mount Weather by the evening. Cage and his father go there every year to update the protocols to new facial recognition and passwords. It’s the right moment to strike, they have their own security force, no local police will be called with the alarms sound. And with Gracie's intel, we have the element of surprise.”

She moved to walk away from him, back to her own quarters and hopefully away from whatever tangled emotions she’d clearly not had enough therapy to unravel on her own. 

“Afterwards, the supplies,” he said to her back and despite herself she turned to face him. “What will happen to all that stuff?”

“It will be put to better use,” she said quietly, “I have a feeling you’d be excellent at determining that protocol. Put it in writing for Monty by the morning. Harper can arrange everything on the back-end.”

“Thank you, Clarke,” he said into the echoing room as she moved silently away.

“You’re about to hang off the side of a cliff for six hours Bellamy,” she said over her shoulder, enjoying the shocked look on his face, “don’t thank me yet.”

She let the doors swing shut behind her, but not before she saw an easy smile spread over his face, and she thought for a moment, how nice it was to be the reason it was there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoping to update all my WIPs, in this, the time of social distancing.   
> Stay well readers, wash your hands, and make good choices for yourself and others. 
> 
> Also, don't fuck with Clarke Griffin.
> 
> Come chat on tumblr, I'm there as 'HiatusMusings' as well

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Much more to come.
> 
> Also, I'm on tumblr now as Hiatus Musings and will post the link there as well.


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